QIC (Quarter-Inch Cratridge) was an early standad of tape
cartridges. It survived to mid-90s without significant changes
in construction (characteristical belt mechanism), only track
density increased allowing to store up to 500MB of uncompressed
data. Some machines, especially older Sun or DEC ones, used QIC
tapes to boot OS installation. I have a few QIC streamers and
tapes.
To write or read a whole tape, head assembly was targeted to a
track first. Then, the tape was wound. After it reached the end
marked by dots readable by optical sensor, the head was
re-positioned to the next track and the tape was wound backwards.

To get more
info about early QIC streamers, see my Shinwa SDX-80
unit.

There were other mechanisms using QIC tapes, see
this picture of HP Colorado streamer
from 1989.